There were the key takeaways and messages from the BeReady partners and participants in the project final conference, heldon April22, 2026 in Chisinau, Moldova.
Over 70 participants from 20 European cities and 14 countries took part in the event, which focused on the most important results achieved by the consortium, and also presented evidence-based recommendations to local, national and regional authorities for a systematic approach for the implementation of mitigation measures to tackle urban heat islands (UHIs).
The conference was attended by many representatives of local and national authorities from Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria. The achievements of the project were highly praised by the representative of the European Commission in the Chisinau, Ms. Julda KIELYTE, Team Leader for Competitive and Inclusive Growth, Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Moldova. She shared that the project has a key role to play in social cohesion, supporting the communities and increasing the preparedness of cities to cope with climate change. Only 10% of Europe’s cities have dedicated strategies for climate change adaptation, and initiatives such as BeReady are successfully changing this statistic in the positive direction.
The General Mayor of Chisinau Municipality, Ion CEBAN, congratulated project participants for the creation of easy-to-apply methodologies and practical approaches to deal with heat islands, with tangible results even in smaller towns and cities, which may have limited financial, technical, and expert resources. For cities with limited financial and technological resources, projects like Be Ready are very important in order to show how impactful solutions can be achieved even with little money. You need to start with what you have, at small scale, and build capacity step by step.
The project’s online platform for self-assessment of the capacity and readiness of cities to implement anti-UHI measures, which offers examples of good practice and the possibility of mentoring, has attracted 180,000 visits and more than 24 cities have used the sefl-assessment tools. BISI, the second Bulgarian partner in the project, has developed the platform and will continue to maintain it beyond the project end; D. Lozanova, a representative of the organization, was also a speaker in one of the conference panels.
The project ends at the end of June 2026 with the organization of Bulgaria’s first climate festival on June 4-6 in Sofia, where many of the partners’ pilot projects will be presented, showcasing innovative artistic and technological solutions to deal with heat islands, and raising public awareness of the topic.
More about the project on the website https://interreg-danube.eu/projects/be-ready/about-us, as well as on the website of the Sofia Development Association, coordinator of the initiative.
